e. At Grenada the chosen objective was the possession of
a piece of territory of no great military value; for it must be
remarked that all these smaller Antilles, if held in force at all,
multiplied large detachments, whose mutual support depended wholly
upon the navy. These large detachments were liable to be crushed
separately, if not supported by the navy; and if naval superiority is
to be maintained, the enemy's navy must be crushed. Grenada, near and
to leeward of Barbadoes and Sta. Lucia, both held strongly by the
English, was peculiarly weak to the French; but sound military policy
for all these islands demanded one or two strongly fortified and
garrisoned naval bases, and dependence for the rest upon the fleet.
Beyond this, security against attacks by single cruisers and
privateers alone was needed.

Such were the objectives in dispute. What was the determining factor
in this strife? Surely the navy, the organized military force afloat.
Cornwallis's fate depended absolutely upon the sea. It is useless to
speculate upon the result, had the odds on the 5th of September, 1781,
in favor of De Grasse, been reversed; if the French, instead of five
ships more, had had five ships less than the English. As it was, De
Grasse, when that fight began, had a superiority over the English
equal to the result of a hard-won fight. The question then was, should
he risk the almost certain decisive victory over the organized enemy's
force ashore, for the sake of a much more doubtful advantage over the
organized force afloat? This was not a question of Yorktown, but of
Cornwallis and his army; there is a great deal in the way things are
put.

So stated,--and the statement needs no modifications,--there can be
but one answer. Let it be remarked clearly, however, that _both_ De
Grasse's alternatives brought before him the organized forces as the
objective.

Not so with D'Estaing at Grenada. His superiority in numbers over the
English was nearly as great as that of De Grasse; his alternative
objectives were the organized force afloat and a small island,
fertile, but militarily unimportant. Grenada is said to have been a
strong position for defence; but intrinsic strength does not give
importance, if the position has not strategic value. To save the
island, he refused to use an enormous advantage fortune had given him
over the fleet. Yet upon the strife between the two navies depended
the tenure of the islands. Seriously to hold the